Sin & Punishment: Star Successor

 Sin and Punishment: Star Successor is the sequel to the N64 cult hit, Sin and Punishment, a game that was released in Japan, but now available via Nintendo's Virtual Console. In this game you play the role of Isa or Kachi as you battle your way through the war between Inner-Space and Outer-Space. The game's plot is doesn't go too deep, but it plays out like a typical Japanese anime, but the main star of the show is the gameplay.

Sin and Punishment: Star Successor take use of the Wii's Nunchuck and Wii Remote, the Classic Controller, Nintendo Gamecube controller, and the Wii Zapper, but at the speed of which this game moves, it would be preferred to play with the Nunchuck, Wii Remote combo. Taking nods from games like Starfox 64 and the classic Sega hit Gunstar Heroes, this game is a semi-2-D, 3-D game, while everything is rendered in 3-D your character can only move on a 2-D plain.

You move your character with the analog sticks and you fire with the B-Trigger, using the Wii Remote as your cursor. While simple, the game's difficult is far from it. Also taking hints from arcade games before it, the game's difficulty ramps up almost immediately, in which I had to play the game on Easy, in order to finish it.

Sin and Punishment while a new game, seems to take a lot of concepts from older game before it, using hit-multipliers and having bosses with multiple life bars and forms. There is no leveling up, or unlocking new weapons. A two player option is featured, but the second player is only a cursor, while in the cut scenes, no matter who you play as, you will see both characters on screen. And while this would be a negative, due to everything happening on the screen at once, it is more than okay that this game chose to not render a second model on screen.

Another thing that this game seems to do, is push the Wii to its graphical limits. Using dynamic camera angles to show the player everything that is going on around them. And while the dialog is kinda cheesy, the techno 8-bit J-Pop soundtrack seems to capture the essence of an arcade shooter.

The game does enough to add a level of tension to the player that not many Wii Shooter games can match. While the difficulty curve of this game is steep, but through multiple playthroughs and learning the enemy patterns will lead to true mastery of the game.

Sin and Punishment: Star Successor is far from a throwback, it's an entirely new experience that will give any hardcore gamer a run for their money. If you are looking for a challenge, this is the game to look for.